Wheels of Iscariot Part One

by Emilie Renee Karr

In the darkness she placed her hand over the telephone and lifted it again, letting the receiver remain in its cradle.

They would already know.  Why tell them something they would surely have verified a thousand times?  If they wanted proof from her lips then they would call her.  The number she remembered was only for the most dire of circumstances.  Who knows who could be listening?  If anyone ever found her connections--

It was so obviously a hoax.  The body, hidden from most eyes.  Supposedly so mutilated that a close acquaintance was needed for identification.  And they relying on her words.

No one where it mattered could possibly believe Fox Mulder was dead.  All her crocodile tears couldn't convince them.  Artificial lumps in her throat, acting all for her partner's sake, perhaps the fools in the lower echelons accepted it but they blindly accepted all of the truths they were handed.  Those in positions of importance could not be hoodwinked so easily.

And those that would answer if she dialed that number--they understood how false truth was.  She didn't need to tell them what they already knew.  She wasn't here to be their spy.

He had given her a far greater assignment.

Six years ago, a note, anonymous as they always were, had appeared under her door.

At the dance club address written on it she soon pinpointed the sender.  Watching her coolly, seated at a table but not even sipping the drink next to his folded hands.

If he were dressed even the slightest more flamboyantly he would have been conspicuous.  Men of his sort appeared more on movie screens than in cheap clubs, though it was a rare dashing hero that projected such darkness.  Not the brooding sort of some matinee idols, but an air of coiled blackness beneath the brows.  Imperceptible to most, but she had experience noticing the slightest hints of it.  A cobra suckling its fangs, contemplating striking from its hidden lair.

He wanted her, for some task, some plan, the scope of which she couldn't yet guess at.  But he needed her only as a cog, another part of whatever machine he was constructing.

She moved onto the dance floor.  The only control she could gain would be over him.  Seeing that his desire for her skills was balanced by his desire for herself.  With this one such a proposition would be far from unpleasant.

For a moment she let the music wash over her, absorbing the beat until it became a part of her, matching her rhythms.  Then she began to move, allowing the harsh sounds reign over her limbs.

She carefully retained most control; for him, while his body might be excited by exaggerated gestures, his mind would be put off.  And the mind was all she cared about capturing.  For the time that she could hold it, at least.

His eyes locked with hers, and slowly he rose, advanced toward her.  Began to dance as well, at first to the music and then to her motions, insinuating himself between them, echoing her, dancing with her.  To other watchers perhaps their difference in height appeared unusual, but she made sure that his eyes stayed focused on her own so closely that he would barely realize how far he looked down.

Approaching, pulling back; shoulders, hips, legs moving in tempo with hers.  Each time drawing that much closer before falling away, each time feeling his heat a little warmer on her skin.

At last she did not retreat, and for an instant they were dancing as one body, herself pressed against his fire.

The instant before their union was complete she stepped away from it, and was gratified to hear his tiny gasp.  He exhaled harshly, steadying himself with a second breath.  Whispered, "How much?"

"I'm not a prostitute."  Firmly, but without anger.  More than once before she had been mistaken as such.  The equation didn't hold, however; she had nothing in common with them.  Money was never involved, and she didn't deal in sex, the fulfillment of the body.  Her realm, her currency was deeper, dwelling in the mind, the soul, the heart.

For a moment there she had touched his mind; his gasp had not been for the physical intensity but the mental anticipation.

"Come with me, then," he requested.  She nodded, taking his hand and carefully avoiding other contact.  Balancing him delicately they made their way out of the noise of the club into the street, then into the quiet of his car.

They drove to a hotel rather than a home.  Of course he wouldn't dare show her something so personal.

When the door closed behind them she faced him.  "Is this safe and sufficiently private?"

"It should be."

"What do you want, then?"

"Anything beyond a night of pleasure?"  he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"If that's all, I might as well leave.  Others of your background have more significant purposes."

"So you know me."  The slightest hint of surprise on his face.

"Not you, individually," she replied truthfully.  "But who you work for, or who work for you.  I recognize them and theirs."

"I doubt you actually would know who works for me.  You couldn't even guess who I am."  He regarded her thoughtfully.  "But I know you individually.  I have your name."

She shrugged.  "I'm a government employee.  It's easy enough to find it out."

"True, you don't use a pseudonym," he agreed.  "And you have a popular reputation as a fine, upcoming young agent.  Dana Scully, one of the many bright lights of the FBI."  She accepted the praise graciously.

"In certain circles--those which you identified me as belonging to--you have an even greater reputation."

"Which is why you've come to me."

"Perhaps I'm just here to test it."

She drew imperceptibly closer to him, so he looked down into her face as she spoke.  "Proceed, then."

"I'm looking for more than a little simplistic whoring."  Grudgingly she had to admit she was impressed.  His voice was still cold, calm, despite the tension his body radiated because of her nearness.  This one had almost as much control as she herself.

He must be more than the callow youth he appeared to be.  A man as young, as virile, as he looked to be would never have been able to hold himself so still; to resist the demands of his body he would have had to fall back, increase the distance between them.  But though he was close enough that his dark hair nearly brushed her face this man held himself iron-straight.  As if she wasn't anything more than a shadow or an animal.

"I can do whatever you want me to.  The only question is will I do it."

"It isn't an easy assignment."  Speaking as if he knew he only interested her further with every hint he dropped.  "It will be far more than one night."

"How long?"

"I don't know."  He shrugged.  "Well over a year.  Concentrating on one man.  The thing is, we don't need a spy.  We have plenty of observers.

"But we want influence.  Control.  And knowledge that a spy could never find.  Windows to his heart, to his memories, to everything about him."

She stepped back, dropping the come-hither routine in favor of contemplating this petition.  "And why did you come to me?"

"Because of your abilities.  And because you're positioned conveniently.  You've already insinuated yourself in the Bureau."

"I didn't cheat.  I earned my way in.  Every degree I have I deserve."  One of the biggest dangers of her other reputation was that those who knew of it believed the two to be related.  That she was nothing more than a stupid creature who had slept and connived her way through schooling and the Academy and the rest.

But he shook his head.  "That's why you got my note.  This isn't a job for a fake.  He's smart, this man; he'd catch you in a flash if you weren't able to hold your own.

"But you have all the real talents required.  You actually hold the position.  Everything about you would be true."

"Except for my reasons for being there."

And now it was his turn to move close to her, the same dance as at the club, only slower and to a much deeper beat.  "Could you act your part, hiding truth with reality, twenty-four hours a day for as long as it takes?  How long can you remain on stage convincing an audience of one?  That's all I need to know."

She smiled sweetly up at him, curling her red hair behind her ear with one graceful hand.  "In eight years, my family has never seen the side of me you're seeing now.  And I love my family; I'm close to them.  I told you, I can do whatever you could ask.  But," and her smile hardened, "I haven't yet heard why I should bother."

"Why do you do anything for them?"  he asked.

"Because they ask.  Because they have knowledge," and she drew her lips back from her teeth, "they have a hold over me that I haven't yet broken.  But you're not one of them," instantly shifting to a gentle expression, erasing all traces of the snarl.  Displaying her acting; she knew he would be unable to tell her actual feelings.  And he would be impressed.

Of course neither would he show it.  "You're right," he murmured, "I'm not one of theirs.  But this audience is.  A principle pawn.  Only they don't have the control over him that they think they do.

"He's dangerous.  To them and to everyone else; to our interests as well.  And if they can't move him effectively, our only option is to use him instead.  Through you, if possible.

"I can give the standard rewards--money, treasures, wishes granted.  But I'm also offering power.  Power among the interests I support.  And power over one of theirs.  You could regain control, retake their hold and instead wield it over them."

She stared long into his dark eyes, wondering what wheels turned behind them, knowing that her own were just as opaque.  He presented her with temptations Satan himself would find hard to match.  And the greatest of all unspoken, this hardest of tasks, a challenge that she alone could meet.  A bit of trickery that would call on every skill she possessed, stretch her beyond every limit.  The danger called to her seductively, more so than the smooth corners of this man's face, his jaw, the lashes shading the sea-silver eyes.

But it was to those details that she responded now.  Her hands pulled them close to her upturned face, and into his ear she breathed, "If I pass your test, give me the assignment."

She felt him consciously discard the barricades around his emotions and then he wrapped his arms around her body, now fully responsive as she released her own.  Against her she felt him tough, pliant yet stronger again than his apparent age would indicate.  She wasn't the only actor here; this man had talents almost to compete with her own.  If he was as young as she would have guessed, than he must have power matching what he offered her.

What truth existed within him?  She couldn't tell if the poised, restrained man was reality or simply the facade of the young man in his prime that now held her.  The youth could as easily be illusion.  Perhaps both were, hiding something further in still.

Or else, like her, they all were different truths, or different fictions.  The key to her own self, that no one saw, was that every side was a part of her, every facet a reflection of the core of herself that turned in the light, flashing whatever she wanted to be seen.  That center which she kept clean and free, untouched by any except her.

Instead, she reached and placed herself in others' centers.  But with this one, she knew she hadn't even stroked the surface.  And he wished to assign her to a man who might be nearly as obscure, nearly as shrouded.  Work at him until she had not only felt his center but supplanted it with her own.

Which meant that she had no need to touch this man's core.  All that would meet would be a single facet, not but an element of their existence, smooth and close-fitting only for the brief moment of now.

At last his lips reached her own and reminded her why this meeting should happen at all.  Her ardent response would leave no doubt in his own mind.  About whether they should do this, and then about whether she should be given this lovely assignment.

She soon nudged his head back, not pushing away more than what space she needed to watch his face.  "Only one more question," she murmured, "what should I call you?"  To know who assigned her.

"No one uses the name I was born with."  His words came rushed, panting with the effort to speak rationally.

When she made it clear by her stance that nothing would proceed until she had some answer, he shrugged, shoulders shifting under her arms.  "Those that know me currently call me Alex Krycek."  And then she required no more words.

After, while they lay on the bed, his embrace holding her close, he whispered into her ear the name that mattered, the only thing that would count for as long as she held the assignment then given to her.

The next morning she arose and stretched in the early sunlight.  Krycek hadn't left in the night; surprised, she nudged him awake.  "If you stay, then you'll be of use to me."

At her touch he snapped into full alertness, relaxing only after his eyes searched the room.  Then he sat up and, taking her by the hand, drew her back to the bed, where he began to comb his fingers through her hair.  "How will you use me?"

"For questioning."  Her words were all business but she succumbed to his touch without hesitation.  "For this assignment, I need to know the target.  Inside and out, all you know about him and more."

"I'll do the best I can."  He began to braid the short tresses and then undo them as she spoke.  "What do you have so far?"

"Fox Mulder," she recited from last night.  "I've heard of him at least.  He's got his own reputation.  'Spooky' Mulder at the Academy.  In the Violent Crimes section of the Bureau.  Not one of their favorites, though; he's got a reputation as a trouble- maker.  But you say he's one of them despite that?"

"Not one of them," Krycek corrected.  "One of their pawns.  He wouldn't report to them; he thinks he's fighting them.  And his renegade status is one of his dangers."  He spoke quietly, clearly, as he told her the basic facts of Fox Mulder's life; his education, his family, his homes, his job.  Data that could be pulled out of the variety of records that categorize a person's existence.  Easy to obtain, because he could access any such record, no matter what its classification.

She listened closely, knowing that by the time she met Fox Mulder she would have memorized it all, intimately familiar with framework of his life though she would never let him know that.

But there is more to a soul then facts and records, and with this man there was far more to even his elemental history that could not be found recorded in any place.

They flew together out of the United States, off the continent, to a complex hidden under snowy mountains.  The people working there, dressed in white coats or unidentified military uniforms, spoke a multitude of languages.  Their English was accented, each differently.

They all nodded, bowing their heads, murmuring, "Welcome, Comrade Krycek," as he lead her past them.  An elevator took them into the depths of the place, where he lead her through twisted silver halls and at last into an alcove protected by password and keyed lock.

Surrounded by translucent emerald liquid a woman floated in a tank.  As Scully watched she slowly breathed in the green, chest rising, at last falling again.  "She's alive?"

"As long as she's in here," Krycek told her.  "If it can be called life, with no mind left to speak of, no way to even move, let alone be human," and his hand caressing her spine reminded her of living.  "But she still has purposes, so she isn't merely left to die."

As Scully watched the woman breath, the liquid rippling around her brown hair like that of a mermaid's, Krycek told her who she was, how she had come to be here.  While she peered under the half-lidded eyes, at their deadness set among living flesh, he described the importance of this woman, of how Fox Mulder's own life had been altered, warped by her being.

"This is why he's dangerous," he told her, gazing at the naked form.  "Because we can't let him stand here and see this.  So he thinks she's alive, somewhere, and he's determined to find her."

"His sister," Scully echoed, thinking of family ties and relationships and filing it away as another path to this man's heart.  Looking up at the dead life, she suppressed a shudder.  He wouldn't want to find the truth about Samantha, no matter how obsessed he may be.

As they left the room, Krycek mentioned, "Only five people now have seen her.  And only ten have known that tank even exists."  She didn't ask how many of those were still alive; nor of those dead, how many had met their fate at the hand of the man she walked beside.

She had never killed, and as a medical doctor abhorred most death, murder the worst of all.  But she had no illusions about the man Krycek; the blood was palpable on his hands, in the way he gestured and the way he touched her.  He moved in a different manner, in a different sphere, where life was not sacred.

She didn't judge him or hate him, and she didn't deny that his touch electrified her as few could.  They both understood how it lay between them; only two bonds connected them.  One of the physical, which they both took equal enjoyment from…

And that of the assignment, which she lived for, and he lived for whenever he was with her.

Of course these two connections twisted, interwove with one another.  "What do you know about past girlfriends?"  she'd ask him, as she relaxed in his lap, his arms encircling her.

His answer was warm breath in her ear, "He's had them, I'll give you the names.  No current one and they've been few and far between for the most part.  Observers haven't noted any one-night stands."

She nodded, her hair tickling his nose until he turned his cheek against her head.  Invisible to him she smiled, the irony of the situation not escaping her.  No detail of Mulder's life was too intimate for Krycek to have or find.  She demanded more about him than the most attentive lover.

She laughed to herself when she compared her knowledge of this man she had never met against what little she knew of the man sharing her bed.

Not all her time was spent so.  She was an FBI agent; most of her days were at Quantico, attending and giving lectures, conducting occasional autopsies for other agents.  Her job could be dull, but when at work, she focused on it so exclusively that others found her cool, logically abstract.

Science had always been her interest, her comfort and her refuge some time before.  She had hidden in its theoretical confines, and even now she performed it best when withdrawn.

Her reputation around the Bureau, she knew, was that facet of her personality.  The asexual pathologist, analyzing and returning results without a hint of emotion for victims or criminals or agents investigating.  She had cultivated this, never indicating how she felt, never even letting it be known that by this point her work had lost its appeal, its fascination faded to ennui.

So they thought of her as a robot-researcher, nothing more.  None of her acquaintances in the FBI would recognize the woman Alex Krycek held some nights.

This bifurcation of her life in no way disturbed her; rather it excited her, charged her with energy as every hour she decided what mask to wear.

Krycek was also unaffected by it.  He too donned a variety of guises, though she never caught more than a hint of the others.  For long periods of time, sometimes weeks, he would vanish, only to appear at her door smiling superiorly, dressed in a suit or a uniform or a garish dance-club ensemble.  These remnants were all that would remain of the role that he cast away when he saw her, in favor of something she believed was truer to himself.  She became familiar enough with his body, his quirks and his mannerisms, in intimate enough circumstances that they couldn't all be faked.

And all the while, whether Krycek was making love to her or gone with his own affairs, Scully absorbed more and more of the man Fox Mulder.  She knew of his opening of the X-files before he had even left the VCD.  And more than any other agent she understood his motivations.

Krycek came to her only a few days after that.  "Soon," he told her, brushing his hands over her shoulders.  "The wheels are in motion.  You'll be called up to a chief's office within the next month, and then your assignment begins."

A shiver vibrated through her body, a flash of ecstasy at anticipation of a meeting she had prepared nearly a year for.  His touch for once didn't move her, as she fell automatically into the mode which she must soon maintain.

Disappointed by her lack of response he returned to straight explanation.  "You should be made his partner ostensibly, but what they'll be asking for is evidence to shut him down.  They think that you're perfect for the assignment, between your scientific background, your known skepticism, and your loyalty to the Bureau.  You are a credit to the FBI, Agent Scully," his bow was ironic, "and even forces beyond the bureau are on your side."

She cocked her eyebrow at that.  "None of them even suspect that I might have reasons of my own for wanting this?  You yourself told me I had a reputation."

"Only on a few lists.  And that was a year ago.  I assure you, those lists have new names now, and nobody remembers that side of you."  Little imagination was needed to figure the fate of those who had remembered; she didn't ask the particulars.  "The only ones of them that know your name know it only as an agent of the Bureau, and as their prime choice for closing down Fox Mulder before he sticks his nose where it doesn't belong."

"Only he's already done so," she remarked.

He shrugged.  "And will again.  They're incompetent, they don't know how to deal with him.  With the right manipulation he could be an asset instead of a hindrance."

"I'm the manipulation."

"The best we have."  He passed his hands once down her sides, feeling every curve, and then withdrew to the door.  "I'll leave you to your work.  When you meet him you can be in character without my distraction.  I'll rendezvous with you sometime in the future, to see how you progress."  And he was gone, as separate from her as he had been a year ago.

She submerged the facet of herself that had known Alex Krycek, so that the only part of her being that showed was the agent who did her duty to the best of her ability, who followed orders and who had never danced with any man in a shadowed night club, or taken the assignment, or seen a woman suspended in a tank deep underground.  Dana Scully could recall these things, but only distantly, as memories belonging to another woman.  The one clear directive from that woman was the one in the core of her being, the assignment and all that pertained to it.

Krycek's prediction came true within three weeks.  Seated in Chief Blevin's office, collected and poised, confident in her abilities, they told her who she had been partnered with.

She accepted the transfer willingly, answered their questions unhesitantly.  "He had a nickname at the Academy," she related with a nervous smile, as if she were feeling her way through murky waters.  "'Spooky' Mulder."

They all nodded understandingly, their looks almost sympathetic.  Aware that they were throwing her into a tricky situation, with a pitiful amount of explanation.  What she knew of Fox Mulder came only from gossip; the woman speaking might never have heard the man's life story whispered softly into her ear.

The tiniest hint of righteous disbelief in her voice when she questioned their motives.  "Am I to understand that I'm supposed to discredit his work?"  Make them squirm a little for calling such an innocent, green agent into their power plays.  Obvious that she had no prior dealings with any sort of plots.

In the corner of the room, watching her, a man that her outside self did not know exhaled smoke from his cigarette.  Inside she recognized him as one of them, and noted with hidden relief that he made no indication that he knew her as anything more than what she seemed to be.

Her one slip, frightening to her control as it was, was invisible to all but her.  As she raised her hand to knock on the door of Fox Mulder's basement office she saw it visibly shake, quivering with nervous enthusiasm.

Consciously she forced it still, told herself that she had reason to be tense.  Greeting a man with such a reputation, much of it negative.  A new partner who had reason to dislike her before they even met.  Someone to make any reasonable person uneasy.  And she knocked.

His words calling her in were precisely what both selves had expected, comforting in their sarcasm.  Her first sight of him gave her heart a flutter, which she again attributed to nerves.  Rather than to the culmination of the last year, meeting in reality what she had seen a hundred photographs and images of.  With and without glasses.  Though tempted to tell him to leave them on, she couldn't make the wrong impression.

Before they had exchanged more than a few words they were on their first case.  "Can you identify this compound, Agent Scully?"

It was clearly synthetic; she could hypothesize its origins.  But not with conviction, any more than she could absolutely say what meaning lay in the marked bodies.  And she could never let on what she guessed.  He accepted her silence.

Once in Oregon Agent Scully allowed her inner self to relax.  Her partner matched perfectly with her expectations.  His eccentricities were many and obvious, as he tried both consciously and unconsciously to frighten her away, to scare her back and leave him alone with his X-files.

Of course she would never run.  The most rejection she gave was a surprised stare, a bemused frown.  Natural confusion at his nonsensical actions.  She called him "Mulder" and didn't blink at his curt use of her surname.  And she smiled at his dry wit.  Not only because she was amused, though he was clever.

Her tenacity and her acceptance would impress him, that she was fully aware of.  More importantly, she saw to it that they worked well together.  Carefully balancing her skeptical disbelief against his blind faith, all the while she made sure that her stubbornness was logical and impersonal.  Setting herself against his convictions but not against he himself.  The latter would only antagonize him.  The former would strengthen him, something he would not be oblivious to.  She set the foundations of a sturdy and viable partnership.

The investigation itself intrigued her.  It was a likable experience to be out in the field, interviewing and gathering evidence with her own hands.  Even the autopsy was a unique experience to her, both the circumstances surrounding it and the body itself.  Not to mention Mulder's flashing camera, her first chance to observe him in high gear.

Witnessing his energy she calmed herself.  "Probably a chimpanzee," she declared of the corpse.

His face fell, and she wondered if she had spoken wrongly.  Driven him away.  But no; he needed truth, he would honor that far more than praise or mindless agreement.

And she gave him truth as much as she understood it and as far as she dared.  While she had been privy to information about related happenings, her actual knowledge was sketchy at best.  And despite rumors she had heard from various circles, Dana Scully was by no means convinced of the existence of extra-terrestrials.  Ignoring those rumors, she had no belief in them at all.

But even her inner self was hard-pressed to rationalize the evidence they uncovered.  Mulder's theories might seem insane on first look, but they arose from a solid base of inexplicable facts.  Here was a man she could respect more than ridicule.

Only once did she test him.  The mosquito bites, so perfectly placed, offered an irresistible opportunity in light of their case.  Clad in nothing but a thin robe and underclothes, running to him in a night lit only by candles and the moon.

Plenty of men would have had only one response.  As she understood Fox Mulder, though he might be tempted, he wouldn't take what was offered.

Her calculations were correct.  Even when she leaned against him he only squeezed her lightly.  She felt no tension in his body, no striving to hold back a response.  A gentleman, and an agent who respected his partner as a person automatically.  Her imitation fear he did not view as a weakness but as a natural response; his own answer was sympathy, support he felt she needed.

Somehow, by ways he probably could not even understand, she ended up lying across his bed, him on the floor beside telling her secrets he usually kept.

"I remember a bright light, and a presence in the room," with sincerity vibrating his voice.  Outside, lightning flashed, white across his face but his eyes remained black.  His words rasped out, soft but piercing.  And halting, unsure of what to give and what to hide.

Her encouragement was a subtle thing, a matter of tone and body language that told his instincts that whatever her words, she believed, she understood.

And she did, more than he could know.  The intensity of his eyes could burn through her, but could not make out the truth.  He never guessed that she could give name to the unnamed sister.  He never imagined the tank of green in her memory, where his dearest wish rested.

He described the forces working against him, what little he had caught of what they did.  Suspicious that she was one of them.

"I'm not part of any agenda," she assured him.  "You have to trust me.  I'm here to solve this, the same as you."  Low-voiced and calm, with the convincing edge of reality.  Giving him an anchor, the offer to rest against her stability.

And he who had learned to trust only sparingly trusted her.  Whether or not he consciously realized it.

Final confirmation came as she lay readying herself for sleep, meditating on what she had witnessed while watching the red numerals of her clock.  A telephone beeping, a call in the night to tell her what they had done.  It was no more than what she suspected.  If he had asked she could have told him the most likely place that implant was now stored.

But of course he didn't ask.

It was not the last call.  But it was nearly the last time that she could have given a simple answer to one of his unasked questions.

Scully, who had at times thought that she had long stopped growing, that there was nothing new for her to learn, discovered how mistaken she had been.  So many experiences, so many challenges, every day forcing her to expand and open her mind.

Not too much, of course.  Only a crack, enough to give Mulder a hope of convincing her, but making it a challenge.

"What would I do if you just said, 'Yes, Mulder, that sounds likely?'" he asked rhetorically of her once.

She dropped him a hint of a smile.  Never laugh too much at a man's jokes, or he'll guess he's being humored.  "Realize you've gone soft?"  she suggested, and was rewarded with his own sarcastic grin.

Nothing more than office banter, but that he spoke so at all, that he could relax casually with her at work even briefly, gave her indication of her accomplishment thus far.  She scored every signal, tracking her progress as conscientiously as a broker watches the rise and fall of the market.

When she recalled it she mentally thanked Krycek for this assignment, for ending whatever boredom she had had with life.

She only did so rarely, however.  For days at a time she literally would have no chance to think of him, no opportunity to draw away from her projected self long enough to touch inside.  The key to a great actor is the ability to become the character played, to live the part so convincingly that even oneself is fooled.  Dana Scully had it in her to be among the most talented thespians of the century, but she preferred the privacy of catering to but one individual.

And when the individual was as complex, as multi-dimensioned as Fox Mulder, her work was not a chore but a game.  A puzzle of such complexity as to afford years of pleasure.  With the added delight of their job, their multiple quests and riddles, she was never bothered by the progress of the assignment, the many fits and starts and backtracks on the road to winning his implicit trust and then more.

And then for a moment it went beyond scores and challenges.

So suddenly it happened that she had no warning, no chance to compose herself.  Her mother's call, and Scully was attending the funeral of her father, the waves swallowing the rain and then his ashes.  Ahab was dead.  And what if where he went he could look back, what if he could see his daughter?  Know what she had never told him?   He had disliked her entering the Bureau.  He would hate her when he saw beyond that.  Saw how cunningly she used people, how casually she played on weaknesses for her own goals.

If only she could tell him why; if only he could understand her reasons, of how it happened that she could do this.  Explain that even what she did now was to help, was to save in the end.  She needed to redeem herself in his dead eyes.

Her shell was brittle, cracked; her weakness unfeigned for the first time in many years.  Long ago she had locked her soul away from everyone but herself, so that when she was again touched the way she had been that dark night only her body would feel it.  But she had shut her family's love in with her, and now a piece of that was gone, a hole ripping through all her shields.

His eyes at the office were over-flowing with sympathy, understanding.  He offered support, acknowledging her pain and then trying to guide her beyond it with his devotion to work, pulling her into the emotionless specifics.

She had predicted his behavior, she knew what his responses would be to the very words, only when he spoke them it felt different.  In a way she needed it, required even empty sympathy to help patch the tear.  She leaned against him like a crutch while she healed.

There was comfort in the assignment as well.  "You're sure you're alright, Dana?"  And his hand cradled her cheek.  A cheering amount of progress, contact and use of the first name.  He was beginning to care, and she found pleasure in success.

For the first time too the case they were on became less a mind game and more a deeper involvement.  The man Boggs might have been torturing her or he might have been speaking his actual vision of the truth.  She wanted to know; she would have liked little better than to spend twenty four hours alone with him, to elicit everything stored in his twisted heart and mind.  But it wasn't in character to do so.

On the docks, after the gunshot rang out and she crouched by Mulder's side, damming back the scarlet blood, she considered the recent days and months.

No doubt she had enjoyed her occupation.  If she were shipped back to Quantico she might resign.  Being an X-files agent was one of the few placements that she could hold interminably without risk of boredom.  But of course there was more.

Never had she focused so much on one target.  And never before had she the chance to delve so deeply into a soul.  Creating something beautiful, painting a relationship with careful consideration of every stroke of the brush.  Illusion more convincing than reality.  Krycek asked for her craft, and she was giving him a masterpiece.

For her work to be so crudely ripped away would be a great injustice.  She didn't want to see this project end.  Not yet.  Not incomplete when she was succeeding.

So when he lived Scully breathed a long sigh of relief, of thanks that it was not over.

He worried over her, gratifyingly.  Even in the empty hospital ward with her the only company, even when he for once disbelieved that it could be true, he asked her why she wouldn't go hear what her father's words were.  His half-accurate empathy had sensed her sorrow and was concerned.

She didn't bother to tell him what he had no need to understand.  Between her mother's words, and Boggs' rantings, and the vision her heart acknowledged, she had made peace with Ahab.  The assignment continued.

Months after that, she thought it ended at last.  She knew that the proof he seeked was dangerous.  He paid the price for incaution, and only because of her assignment did she risk herself to alter the payment.

Another body shot and lying bleeding, but this one injured too deeply to save.  Mulder only barely whisked out of their clutches; an attempt to sacrifice their pawn for some larger prize, an attempt she foiled smugly.  And another phone call in the night.

"I can't give up," he told her.  "Not as long as the truth is out there."  But he hung up before she could affirm her own devotion.  Cutting her off.  She hadn't achieved a tight enough hold, and now it was broken.

A week later her phone rang again.  It took a second to identify the voice on the other end; she had neither seen nor heard Krycek for close to a year.  His smooth tone fully empowered what had been dormant for that time.

"You're doing well, I hear."

"Did well, you mean.  Or haven't you heard that it's over?"

"He may no longer be your partner," she was informed, "but he still is your assignment.  Unless you think that since the X- files are closed he'll stop investigating them?"

She only laughed.  "I had enough time to build a fairly strong bond.  So I'm to maintain it?"

"They won't remain closed forever.  There are too many opposing forces.  One's in command now but it'll fall soon enough.  And he's a danger and a useful piece regardless.  Stay with him."

"Your wish is my command."  She paused.

He filled the void.  "I'm coming back in the area.  I need to see to several things personally.  Mind if I drop by?"

My bed's empty enough."

"Should I be pleased or concerned at your lack of progress?"

"I don't know if I'm going to progress in that direction," Scully told him.  "The key to a heart is rarely directly through hormones and genitals."  Which is why she would never capture Krycek, and he would never snare her--but those words, though known to both, remained unspoken.

She contacted Mulder enough to assure that she was far from forgotten.  Her flight down to Puerto Rico convinced her that the X-files were closed but by no means locked in a back drawer.  It also provided distraction in an all-too-regular routine.  The little pieces of his cases were the only reason she could stand the increasing monotony.

And then Mulder appeared in the autopsy room with his new partner.

She should have suspected, but somehow it never occurred to her that he would be so devious to her, so tricky.  A test of her skill and her patience.

To her he appeared tremendously unnatural, bouncing on his toes like an eager puppy and going green when she displayed the autopsy results.  She couldn't fault his acting, but even being so distant from his true nature he radiated a hint of that vicious fire, the flame that first had drawn her and summoned her still.

She responded in the only way she could, by ignoring Alex Krycek as ruthlessly as she had in the past year.  Mulder's former partner cared little for an agent replacing her.  And Scully resented the competition, the sheer cheek of someone thinking they could worm their way into the assignment as well.

If he managed at all, it was because of her work, her efforts that had opened Mulder up to others.

Two nights later Krycek stood on her doorstep, suit and tie and slicked-back hair.  That was the first thing she pounced on him for, when she had ushered him inside.  "You had to cut it?"

He wound his hand through her own curls.  "For the same reason you destroyed your own.  To give off the right atmosphere of talented innocence.  Remember, I'm an impetuous but obedient young agent," and he offered her a boyish grin completely at odds with the Krycek she well knew.

She slid close.  "Obedient to whom?"

His head bent over to nuzzle the back of her neck.  "That's why I came.  I have to warn you."

"Of what?"  as she ran her fingers through his hair, frowning slightly at the grease.

"I'm not just suddenly an FBI agent for a joke," he told her.  "I have an assignment of my own."

"From who?  Since you maintain you give orders, not follow them."

He told her.  She froze for an instant.  "You've been their opponent for how long?"

"But they don't know that."

Down his profile she drew one, two, three fingers.  "A triple agent."

"Equal to you yourself," he replied, capturing her fingers and kissing her hand in the ancient tradition.

"So why do you have to warn me?"

He sighed.  "Because as careful as you've been, they still notice how close you are.  What effect you have on Mulder, and how it's not part of /their/ plans.  You're becoming a problem that they'll address soon enough."

On the tip of her tongue was the query, how did they know?  But the answer lay in her arms, his mouth warm on hers.  He had been sent as a spy, and to maintain his cover he would give them as much honesty as he dared.  Including her actions, though the assignment of course would go unmentioned.  There was no other explanation of why at this time she would suddenly be in danger.

Perhaps it was a test, not of her, but of them.  To see how they would react.  So a defense could be designed.

And perhaps it also was a test of Mulder.  If something should happen to her, how would he behave?

"How much danger am I in?"

"I don't know yet."  He made no promises to tell her.  No vows that he would protect her.  She would have seen their emptiness in a second.

That lack was unrelated to what they shared.  They talked as they always had while basking in the aftermath.  "I've heard every report you've given," he assured her.  "So I assigned well."

"I told you I could do whatever you asked," she replied smugly, curled against him.  "He's not so difficult.  Once I learned his vulnerabilities it was a delight."

"Do you want me to be jealous?"  he breathed into her ear.

She chuckled, feeling his body echo the humor.  "When he doesn't even call me by my given name?"  Of course neither did Krycek, but the circles he moved in never required names.  Using them with him would be unnatural.

He was attentive to the difference, however.  "I noticed.  Why don't you cross that line?"

"I tried."

The one time had been an obvious failure.  The emphatic shake of his head, "I even made my parents call me Mulder."  Probably that was an exaggeration, but the truth she guessed at.  A sister of course would have called him Fox…

Best avoid that; identifying her partially with Samantha could be useful, but a complete match would drive him away, out of fear of losing it again.  So she called him Mulder and accepted her own designation as what it was.  A sign of closeness, not separation.

"It's not important to him," she explained.  "There was no need for me to antagonize him over it."

"You don't need to defend yourself to me," Krycek murmured, drawing her even closer.  "I've seen how much you matter when you're onstage.  To him you might as well be all that's there."

High compliment from her assigner.  There was no sarcasm in his tone, no anger that when she was with Mulder he might as well not exist for either of them.  They might enjoy each other now but he understood as well as she that such things had a proper time and place.  And vulnerable emotions had neither.

When Duane Barry smashed through her window, she never even considered calling for Krycek.  Not only because it was Mulder on the other end of the line did she shout his name.  She had the confidence that he could help.  She had that much influence with him, that he would by now go to great lengths for her.

At the instant of the action, her thoughts hadn't been so orderly.  Barry's face, pressed against the glass and then breaking past it, had shocked her to the core.  However, she had enough composure to fight back.

But when she slammed the heel of her hand into his shoulder, right where the red blood flowed from, and his expression changed not at all, his motions as inexorable as if she had done nothing- -then she had felt fear.  And she had fallen back to what she had the most confidence in, to her succeeding assignment, screaming for help from Mulder.  Only he never came.

Lying in the trunk of Barry's car, she mentally damned herself for not taking more care.  She had had some idea what that implant was; why had she ever thought that because it was manmade the barcoder could have made sense of it?  Why, when she had known too well who it might alert?

And later, as she felt bruises form with every bump of the worn- out shocks and her mouth tasted of blood's iron, she cursed Krycek mentally, for not getting back to her, for not using all his influence to rescue her from this.  Her instincts reminded her never to await salvation rising from his deviltry.

Further on still, when she was roughly yanked from the darkness into the cold night, she hated Mulder for not arriving in time.  She knew he must be coming, could not help but be out there, striving to find her from the moment he played his answering machine.  But he was too slow, she hadn't quite a strong enough hold yet.

She wondered if his new partner was helping or hindering, suspecting the latter, and then she was swallowed by light.

End Part One
Continued in Part Two

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